Stravinsky thought the orchestration of the 1947 Petrushka ''more skilful'', though he admitted that for many ''the original music and the revised version are like two geological layers that do not mix''. Some of the later re-scorings (e.g. bassoon for bass clarinet in ''Police and the Charlatan'' are an improvement, but there are sounds in the 1911 score that it's a shame to lose—the glittering glockenspiel or the ballerina's cheerfully vulgar cornet are two conspicuous examples. Oddly enough there are discrepancies between Charles Dutoit's ''1911'' Petrushka and Claudio Abbado's ''Version originale de 1911'' for DG. It looks as though Abbado decided on a compromise version—if so, he really should have owned up. Dutoit too seem unable to leave the text completely untouched: side-drum and timpani calls to attention before the third and fourth tableaux have been taken out, otherwise his reading is entirely faithful, and thus far Stravinsky would have been highly satisfied: ''I ask no more of a conductor,'' he told Robert Craft. ''Any other attitude on his part immediately turns it into an interpretation, and that I have a horror of.''
Nevertheless, for all Dutoit's faithfulness, this is an interpretation. By placing less emphasis than either Davis (Philips) or Abbado (or Stravinsky himself) on punchy accentuation and rhythmic precision, and by bringing out the delicate colours of Petrushka's own music, Dutoit relieves the score of some of its raw immediacy, and introduces an almost dream-like element. And while he doesn't exactly 'humanize' the character of Petrushka, there's a quality of indefinite sadness associated with his appearances, intensifying (though never becoming fully articulate) at his death. It's very nice, though it's a pity that he can only achieve this at the expense of the naturalistic vividness of the crowd scenes: this isn't a performance for those who, apparently like the composer wish to find in the score the ''smells of Russian food... and of sweat and glistening leather boots'' (I'm quoting from Paul Griffiths's sleeve-note).
If Dutoit's Petrushka seems in general some-what over-refined, his Rossignol strikes me as just right—atmospheric, beautifully coloured and remarkable for its sustained narrative-like quality. Listening to Stravinsky in both works, one suspects that the old composer had forgotten that there was a story attached to the music, one could hardly say that of Dutoit, in fact his Rossignol is one of the most convincing and generally appealing that I can remember. Once again it's a performance that touches the heart, if ever so gently. I wonder what Craft's crusty old interviewee would have thought of it.
For Le chant du rossignal then, this is an attractive issue- and Dutoit even manages to bring a little charm to the Four Studies—no mean achievement, though even he can't convince me that ''Madrid'' really belongs alongside the first three. Dutoit's Petrushka won't prove universally popular, but it may well appeal to those who like at least a suggestion of pity in the close, or who feel that Stravinsky's Russian peasants could do with a little civilizing (not my opinion I hasten to add). Recordings are clean, though one or two details (particularly in the woodwind) sound less than ideally present.`'